Washington - On Sunday, Mother's Day will be celebrated for the 103rd year in American history.
As a parent, I am nearing only my fifth. But reflecting on the past four, my expectations couldn't be lower.
Mother's Day No 1: My daughter (she's adopted) is six weeks old. I am recovering from a bout of meningitis, followed by a second mysterious illness that leaves me temporarily arthritic. Weighing less than 45kg and in excruciating pain, I can't even lift my laptop, let alone an infant. I am not sleeping, and the holiday passes without me noticing.
Mother's Day No 2: My neighbours organise a Mother's Day barbecue for their wives. My then-boyfriend is, understandably, with his mother. So I hang around the house all day smelling grilled meat, washing bottles and waiting for him. When they return, his mom wishes me a Happy Mother's Day. My boyfriend is silent until my daughter crawls straight for the box containing his pot stash. He lunges toward her with a cup. “Here, play with this.”
Mother's Day No 3: My friend is in town on a six-hour layover. It's his birthday, and he wants to spend it riding around in taxis and downing espresso. He heads back to the airport at noon, and I spend the rest of the afternoon vomiting coffee and car exhaust, hoping my 2-year-old naps until tomorrow.
Mother's Day No 4: The Friday before Mother's Day, my preschooler proudly hands me a card she made at school. On the front she has coloured a picture of a middle-age woman driving a station wagon. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I gush, reaching for the tape to secure it above my desk. “No!” she shrieks dissolving into hysterics. “It's mine!” “Isn't it for me?” I ask. “For Mother's Day?” She collapses on the floor sobbing. I return the card.
I have realised that, despite “mother” being in the title, Mother's Day is a holiday for wives. I am the former but not the latter. And for me, Mother's Day is like any other Sunday except for the added pressure of pretending how special it is.
When I was a child, my father gave me and my siblings money for the annual flower sale at school. He would help us transfer the flowers from the plastic pots to the yard. He took us to the pharmacy to pick out cards. He bought bagels and lox, or turned on the grill, or made reservations. He was our reminder before we could read a calendar, our funder before we had babysitting money, and our chauffeur before we got driver's licences. Mother's Day was his job before we were old enough for it to be ours.
The day before my birthday this year, I asked my daughter: “Are you going to sing happy birthday to me tomorrow?” Completely unaware that her mother has a birthday, my daughter thought that I had merely revised the words to the song. “Happy Birthday to you tomorrow, happy birthday to you tomorrow,” she sang enthusiastically, clapping off beat.
Mother's Day is an even murkier holiday for her to understand. First of all, if it's not a holiday about her, so true to development stage, she just doesn't get it. See above. There's no one else at home to corral her into celebrating, or persuade her to hand over the card. Since I'm thousands of miles away from my own mother and the rest of my family, my daughter has never seen a Mother's Day celebration outside of a fuzzy Skype video.
I agree with Mother's Day founder Anna Jarvis. What started out as a yearly tradition of writing letters of appreciation has gone completely off the rails, hijacked by Hallmark, the flower industry and the thousands of companies cashing in on your efforts to show Mom you care.
For single moms, the onus to celebrate Mother's Day is on us. And if there are two things single moms don't particularly have time for, it's (1) looking up the plural of onus and (2) having any more responsibilities.
So on this Mother's Day, I'm not going to sleep in, have breakfast in bed or get a present. I don't feel like giving myself more work to do or pretending my four-year-old can pull off anything other than her own clothes.
I am going to have a quiet Sunday piled with wet laundry, eggs I'll cook myself and dishes I'll leave until tomorrow. Then I'm going to read on the playground while my daughter yells, “Push me!” I yell back, “Pump!” And she yells back: “Look! I did it!”
Where do clean clothes, dirty dishes and telling my kid to pump her own damn legs fall on the spectrum of Instagrammed brunches and Pinterested handprints, vases of roses and birthstone charms? Perhaps they are on another spectrum entirely, where Sunday is just Sunday, and I don't have to pretend otherwise because Sunday is already good enough.
Whether or not my daughter hands over the preschool-made card this year, there is one thing I want this Mother's Day. When you well-meaningly ask, “What are your plans for Mother's Day?” And I tell you the truth: laundry, cooking, losing my keys, reading the newspaper -- don't feel bad for me. Just say “Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy.”
And I will.
Washington Post